


Family

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [293]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Boredom, Found Families, Gen, Nail Polish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 00:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8423209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: Claire and Alex are bored.





	

“This is stupid,” Alex complains, throwing down her pen.

“What is?” Claire asks. She has her book of lore out, and barely looks up from the pages.

“Trig,” Alex says.

Claire shrugs. “Can’t help you there. I didn’t finish high school.”

Jody’s been bugging her to consider getting her GED at the very least. Not all the time, but she brings it up often enough, and Claire knows she’s not letting it go. She hasn’t made it a condition of staying or anything, though, and right now, Claire is just happy to work her crappy minimum wage job four days a week so she has some cash, and spend the rest of her time learning things infinitely more appealing to her. School’s just not for her.

Of course, Alex is in school. Maybe there’s something about her that’s still saveable, despite what she went through earlier in her life. Maybe Jody’s pushing just works better on her. Maybe it’s because she’s younger–not by much, but enough. Maybe she just likes school, although, judging by her grades and her current frustration with trigonometry, Claire doubts it.

“What are you reading?” Alex asks.

“Nothing that will help with trig.”

“No. I know it. It’s–it’s that stuff. Magic and shit, right?”

Claire shrugs. “Just curious.” It’s not entirely a lie, because she hasn’t figured out what she’ll do with the information yet. Maybe it is just curiosity, something she has to know. Or maybe her need to kill some things won’t be abated, even by Jody’s soothing presence and Alex’s almost sisterly camaraderie.

Alex huffs. “Yeah, well…” she trails off. “God, I need a smoke.”

Jody had confiscated her cigarettes three days before. Claire feels for Alex, has seen plenty of kids go off things and be twitchy on edge until it’s over. “Sorry,” she says, still not looking up from her book.

“Let’s do something,” Alex says.

Claire looks up then. “Like what?”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t know. We could…” She thinks about it, and Claire lets herself think about it too. They can’t go out–it’s a school night and a work night, and Jody isn’t the sheriff for nothing. Even if she isn’t home yet, she’ll know. She’s good at her job, and Claire hazily thinks it’s something to do with her mother’s instincts, too. Like eyes in the back of her head. There’s not much to do in Sioux Falls except smoke pot and get drunk, anyways. 

Somehow, they end up sitting on the living room floor, homework and lore book tossed aside, dumb TV playing in the background–apparently Alex never got to watch these things, growing up, so Claire won’t begrudge her that–and painting each other’s nails. Jody has nail polish in her room, and both Claire and Alex agree that they’ve never seen her wear it, but it’s not dried out and the reds and pinks are nice, so they borrow a couple bottles and bring them downstairs.

When Jody gets home, locking the front door behind her, she turns and looks them over, smiling slowly. Claire braces for being told off for going through her stuff, for distracting Claire from her homework, for something–Jody isn’t like that, a part of her says, but so many people are and sometimes Claire forgets–but Jody just kicks off her shoes then sits on the couch behind them, inviting them to do her nails next.


End file.
